PZ 1070/40(2) ‘Transmission of F.O. secret packets to & from Consulates etc. abroad’ [‎49r] (98/835)

35
situations,” to which the writer The lowest of the four classes into which East India Company civil servants were divided. A Writer’s duties originally consisted mostly of copying documents and book-keeping. of the memorandum attaches such importance, but they are
certainly interesting and useful additions to our information.
7. I also consider that the writer The lowest of the four classes into which East India Company civil servants were divided. A Writer’s duties originally consisted mostly of copying documents and book-keeping. of the memorandum greatly exaggerates the “ gulf which
separates the members of the Diplomatic and Consular Corps (in the United States) and which
prevents a free exchange of knowledge and ideas between the two.” I also hope and believe it to
be untrue that to the Consuls in this country ” the senior diplomats are remote and lofty beings
who are unapproachable on terms of easy familiarity,” or that the Consuls feel themselves liable
to be snubbed or cold-shouldered by a young diplomat. Anyone who was present at the meetings
of Consular Officers here would assure you that the atmosphere was very diffierent from that
implied in these phrases, and I am happy to know that a number of members of my diplomatic
staff are on terms of close friendship with a number of their Consular colleagues.
8. I also note that the writer The lowest of the four classes into which East India Company civil servants were divided. A Writer’s duties originally consisted mostly of copying documents and book-keeping. of the memorandum maintains that Consuls and Diplomats
cannot learn to work together without much practice. It is, therefore, wmrth pointing out that
I have two former members of the Consular Service in the Chancery doing work normally
performed by Diplomatic Secretaries, not to mention three former members of the Consular
Service attached to the Embassy with the rank of Minister. These arrangements appear to be
entirely satisfactory.
9. I have been considering the feasibility of the proposal made in paragraph 11 of your
covering despatch that Diplomatic Secretaries should be lent for a few months to Consular posts,
and Consular Officers brought to work for a few months at the Embassy. This w r as discussed at
the recent Consular meeting. It was felt to be desirable in principle, but it was doubted whether
the pressure of work in war time would make it possible to release either Diplomatic Secretaries
or Consular Officers for such tours of duty, seeing that in most cases it would take them some
months to acquire the personal contacts necessary for them to undertake successfully work at
the post they would visit, quite apart from the time needed, particularly in the case of Diplomats
working at a Consulate, to acquire the minimum knowledge of technical and routine matters. It
was, however, suggested that it would be more feasible, and perhaps equally useful, for Consular
Officers appointed to the United States to spend a period, which might vary from two to six weeks,
at the Embassy on their way to take up their duties, and for junior Diplomatic Secretaries, on
appointment to the Embassy, to spend a corresponding time in some Consular post, preferably
in the Middle West or West, before settling in at Washington. I recommend this suggestion to
your consideration.
10. With the consent of Sir Gerald Campbell, I am enclosing a minute giving his personal
comments on the memorandum enclosed in your despatch.
11. In view of the many, as I believe, unfounded criticisms of this Embassy, and its relations
with the Consular Officers under my jurisdiction contained in the memorandum enclosed in your
circular, you may feel it desirable to give similar circulation to this despatch.
12 I am sending a copy of this despatch to Consular Officers in this country.
I have, &c.
HALIFAX.
Minute.
It is a pity that this anonymous memorandum has been attached to a history-making Foreign
Office Circular, for it was out "of date before the circular was drafted. For all I know, though I
rather doubt it, the gulf to which he refers may still exist in other parts of the world, but it is
assuredly being filled in, or eliminated, or whatever happens to gulfs, in the United States.
It is no use delving into the past beyond stating that the lack of contact between the members
of the Foreign Office and Diplomatic Service on the one side and the Consular Service on the
other was unfortunate. From 1905, when the Lansdowne reforms came into force, Consuls took
a different examination from the others, and few of them had the chance to gain an inside,
intimate knowledge of the beings who worked in the Foreign Office, so they failed to regard them
as human as they went off to their posts on the fringes of the countries of the world. With the
exception of the late Lord Dufferin, it was not until Sir David Scott took them in tow that they
realised that Cinderella had found her man. Once at their posts, they had little contact with
their Superintending Missions, so a relationship persisted in which the Diplomats were apathetic
and the Consuls were, as often as not, antipathetic^—critical, too, for they felt that the Diplomats
did not know much about the countries in which they served outside the political and social life
of the Capital. They were not unhappy, however, for they were masters of their souls in their
own bailiwicks. I can write like this because, although I started from scratch, I did make friends
in both the Foreign Office and the Diplomatic Service, and I attribute this to the fact that very
early in my career I was sent to enquire into rubber atrocities in the Congo, which brought me
into close touch with Senior Officials in the Foreign Office (and even with Sir Edward Grey) and
with Diplomats who were interested in what I had to say when I went home on leave. But I had
had my little eye-opener previously to that when, at my first post, I had had the temerity to
ask His Majesty’s Minister, one of the old school who regarded the Consular Service as a home
for lost dogs, and only liked me because he disliked my Consul-General so utterly, whether a
Consul could not be as useful and worthy of appreciation as an Officer in the Army or Navy; he
fixed me with a stare and, after due pause, remarked: ‘‘My dear Campbell, is a Consul ever
anybody? ”
Perhaps the change came when the Commercial Diplomatic Service was started. This was
recruited mainly from the Consular Service, and, although the early members felt rather out
of it, a link was formed not only between Diplomats and Consuls, but between Diplomats and
an outside world which dealt in such things as trade from which they had hitherto kept themselves
aloof. Also the old die-hards were retiring from the Service or from life itself, and a new
generation of Diplomats was coming into existence. It is also fair to admit that most of the
old Consuls-General were also retiring or dying—the unwanted Members of Parliament or bankrupt
business men for whom the Consular Service had been a useful refuge up to the time of the
Lansdowne reforms—and the Service now consisted mainly of men recruited from the Universities
and passed by a committee under Foreign Office control. If any undesirable men got in, the